From your perspective, why Mortal Online never went big?

[PatrickShawn]

I have read on this sub a lot of things about Mortal Online. Those who love, those who hate, those who hate even more.
But many agree that the game had potential to be good/is good (but empty), yet no one seems to care, play, and the game never went big. When it was released on steam, it got some players, and then died less than 1 year after.
Why do you think that happened?
Let's exclude company issues. Let's try focus on the game. Was it too hard? Bad graphics? The players? Why did you didn't like it? Why have you stopped playing? Why you never even tried it?
I'm a game developer (or I want to be) and my dream is to make something very similar to Mortal Online (I have been dreaming with it way before playing it). When I played, I found a lot of things that I have thought the same, but seeing the game with such a small population, made me rethink so many things.
So in order to understand why, I'm asking you. In order to one day make a better game than the ones that came before, I want to learn what they did wrong, so I can do better.

 

[Speznat]

- Bad Graphics
Masochistic Gameplay to time consuming a lot of boring and grindy tasks, sometimes unrealistic like big granum rock that goes empty poor gamedesgin choice. just lower yields and let player farm forever rocks.
- To much Grief of new Players (grief is okay, but not like thats a pain to login, for some in 2015 steam players it was)
- Group gameplay dont worth gold wise, to dungoen and back and stuff dont worth the time invested
- PVE to buggy and to op in some ways for small groups, mobs shooting with OP ranged attacks and stuff
- Meele pve in sarducca is not possible all mobs to OP and fuck you even in good armor and equip.
- time invest to balance gold and resource outcome totally broken, to much time for to less output, specially in group dungeons and stuff its simply dont worth it and people jsut dont do that or that dungeon anymore because its time waste.
- if youre dead you cant spawn at home priest no you have to ghost 1 hour of your liffetime completly brainless back, what a shit design sry henrik.

the list can go on for another 100 points but these up there are major breaking points from my point of view and also what i heared from people stoped playing.

Hopefully SV will fix this major stuff for MO2

 

[Najwalaylah]

What a very odd introduction for someone who's never joined the forum as a user before, or, for someone who has but not as this user.

I have read on this sub a lot of things about Mortal Online. Those who love, those who hate, those who hate even more.

Hm, you emphasise the hate by mentioning only "love" as an alternative. The excluded middle is "like", "like, but...", and "a little of both love & hate". To fail to mention these is probably to leave out the majority. It's your editorial stance, though, and if it expresses your opinion, so be it.

But many agree that the game had potential to be good/is good (but empty), yet no one seems to care, play, and the game never went big.

I'd like a side of clarification with the word salad served up in that sentence: do you mean that no-one seems to care? (I think most of the entire content of this forum, presently and in the past, is exact proof of how much folks cared or care.)

Do you mean that no-one plays? This has been stated before, and is always just as "no, not quite true" even at the worst of times.

When you say the game never went big, I think we are entitled to a benchmark-- your idea, in your view at least, of just "how big" it was supposed to go? Keeping in mind that it is a niche game and that we've never at any point had any formal count of how many unique players there are, though there were some canny guesses back in the day, I'm not sure it didn't achieve and maintain a healthy set of numbers for that niche and "for a while" at some point, before being released on Steam. Neither, I suppose, are you. For all we know, you never played or were around until today.

Discussing this just lately, it occured to me that the boom & bust of Steam Release began at a point that was not necessarily as low as the Steam Charts show.​

When it was released on steam, it got some players, and then died less than 1 year after.

"Died" meaning lost the huge boom of people that came from or through Steam, of course, since it obviously didn't end when the Boomers left.

Why do you think that happened? Let's exclude company issues.

It's impossible to address the question of why the Steam Boom went Bust while excluding company issues. It's hard to see how you'd think it would be possible to explain that débâcle without reference to Star Vault decisions, especially if you'd been following events and reading the history of the game.

Let's try focus on the game.

Useless. No explanation is possible without addressing that entire Perfect Storm of unwise Star Vault decisions, flaws in development, player-group actions, and (potentially) outside influences that each contributed their share to the events of that time.

.Was it too hard?

Parts of the new player experience were in dire need of change, and for proof I point to the changes instituted to that experience since then.

Bad graphics?

I'd call the comparatively low quality of some MO graphics the least of the game's worries, especially in comparison to e.g. glitches and bugs in the terrain and elsewhere.

The players?

Of course, but only in the sense of doing what the game allowed & encouraged, or failed to effectively forbid. It's not worth discussing without reference to company issues.

Why did you didn't like it? Why have you stopped playing?

This has been covered extensively in threads like
https://www.starvault.se/mortalforums/threads/what-made-you-quit-take-a-break-from-mo.126645/
and
https://www.starvault.se/mortalforums/threads/what-really-killed-mortal-online.126763/

Why you never even tried it?

A fascinating question, and I for another would like to know if anyone reading this has never tried Mortal Online. I'm not going to hold my breath, though.

I'm a game developer (or I want to be) and my dream is to make something very similar to Mortal Online (I have been dreaming with it way before playing it). When I played, I found a lot of things that I have thought the same, but seeing the game with such a small population, made me rethink so many things.
So in order to understand why, I'm asking you. In order to one day make a better game than the ones that came before, I want to learn what they did wrong, so I can do better.

Company issues, like server security. And employee / volunteer security. And hack-proofing security.

 

[Emotional Incarnate]

What a very odd introduction for someone who's never joined the forum as a user before, or, for someone who has but not as this user.Hm, you emphasise the hate by mentioning only "love" as an alternative. The excluded middle is "like", "like, but...", and "a little of both love & hate". To fail to mention these is probably to leave out the majority. It's your editorial stance, though, and if it expresses your opinion, so be it. I'd like a side of clarification with the word salad served up in that sentence: do you mean that no-one seems to care? (I think most of the entire content of this forum, presently and in the past, is exact proof of how much folks cared or care.)

Do you mean that no-one plays? This has been stated before, and is always just as "no, not quite true" even at the worst of times.

When you say the game never went big, I think we are entitled to a benchmark-- your idea, in your view at least, of just "how big" it was supposed to go? Keeping in mind that it is a niche game and that we've never at any point had any formal count of how many unique players there are, though there were some canny guesses back in the day, I'm not sure it didn't achieve and maintain a healthy set of numbers for that niche and "for a while" at some point, before being released on Steam. Neither, I suppose, are you. For all we know, you never played or were around until today.

Discussing this just lately, it occured to me that the boom & bust of Steam Release began at a point that was not necessarily as low as the Steam Charts show.​

"Died" meaning lost the huge boom of people that came from or through Steam, of course, since it obviously didn't end when the Boomers left.
It's impossible to address the question of why the Steam Boom went Bust while excluding company issues. It's hard to see how you'd think it would be possible to explain that débâcle without reference to Star Vault decisions, especially if you'd been following events and reading the history of the game. Useless. No explanation is possible without addressing that entire Perfect Storm of unwise Star Vault decisions, flaws in development, player-group actions, and (potentially) outside influences that each contributed their share to the events of that time.Parts of the new player experience were in dire need of change, and for proof I point to the changes instituted to that experience since then. I'd call the comparatively low quality of some MO graphics the least of the game's worries, especially in comparison to e.g. glitches and bugs in the terrain and elsewhere. Of course, but only in the sense of doing what the game allowed & encouraged, or failed to effectively forbid. It's not worth discussing without reference to company issues. This has been covered extensively in threads like
https://www.starvault.se/mortalforums/threads/what-made-you-quit-take-a-break-from-mo.126645/
and
https://www.starvault.se/mortalforums/threads/what-really-killed-mortal-online.126763/
A fascinating question, and I for another would like to know if anyone reading this has never tried Mortal Online. I'm not going to hold my breath, though.Company issues, like server security. And employee / volunteer security. And hack-proofing security.

god your replies are fucking beautiful

 

[Najwalaylah]

god your replies are fucking beautiful

(Not to derail, but thank you and I shall strive to be worthy of this praise.)

 

[Great genral Mingxia]

pfff not again.

 

[leetboy22]

as a new player of mo i can tell ya for sure thats a reason is for sure that vet player fill toxicity and bully new players even in today small community

 

[ThaBadMan]

So much I dont really want to get into it again.

But the biggest imo is changing the game too much from what was advertised and originally was.
Now it was made for a small audience but if done right you will bring in loads of players as seen in similar games like it.

Too much time was used on time consuming things that really didnt need that priority, lack of content shouldnt be a problem in a sandbox made right.
Too much back and forth and too long waiting time between patches instead of smaller more often ones.

Tips. Stick to your guns on the vision from start and dont budge no matter what, consistent small patches to show things are being done, updates updates updates, often even though theres not much to say. Communication is always better than nothing.
Never listen to loud whiners without proof of their claims, not even when they donate loads to get their way.
Never play favortism. Dont allow corrupt staff to run rampant or be aligned with players or players factions. Dont let cheaters back into your game.

Should be self explanatory but somehow it isnt.

 

[MolagAmur]

Don't take 3-6 months to fix game breaking bugs/balance. Remember the donkhammers on horseback that would one shot you? Yeah had a a lot of guild mates quit over that. Took 5 months or so to fix it. How about the "IX Potion" Era? That was when our guild was in its prime, and those potions basically made us all lose interest in the game because they were in for 4-6 months. Or what about shades fending off a 30 man siege single-handedly? Yep. I could go on and on....but I truly think there would still be more people playing this game if there wasn't such gamebreaking things that took so long to get fixed.

I really hope that balance is a priority in MO2. Perfect balance doesn't exist...but lets never have one shots or blatantly OP shit sit in the game for so long the playerbase says "fuck it" and moves on to another game.

 

[McBadie]

Don't take 3-6 months to fix game breaking bugs/balance. Remember the donkhammers on horseback that would one shot you? Yeah had a a lot of guild mates quit over that. Took 5 months or so to fix it. How about the "IX Potion" Era? That was when our guild was in its prime, and those potions basically made us all lose interest in the game because they were in for 4-6 months. Or what about shades fending off a 30 man siege single-handedly? Yep. I could go on and on....but I truly think there would still be more people playing this game if there wasn't such gamebreaking things that took so long to get fixed.

I really hope that balance is a priority in MO2. Perfect balance doesn't exist...but lets never have one shots or blatantly OP shit sit in the game for so long the playerbase says "fuck it" and moves on to another game.

Couldn't agree more, we went from one OP mechanic to another. Others I remember, daggers/triple strike, sator spears/weakspots, Minotaurs, my house was destroyed by BATS at one point FFS!

1. Balance
2. Bugs/Mechanics
3. Cheating
10. Content/New mechanics (which was sadly #1 for SV)

Like anything in life, build a solid base and then expand from there.

 

[valcor90]

At launch it was the massive amount of bugs. Today it's the outdated graphics and subscription model. In between that it was everything imaginable.

 

[Amelia]

Because people want easy games.
EDIT: at least the majority

 

[Jatix]

Most gamers are soft, and or want instant entertainment.

Soft gamers like games like runescape and wow. Low risk, lots of grind.

And instant entertainment think BR games like fortnite, mobas, shooters, etc. Click play get game repeat.

Games like MO are neither. The benefit is the peak enjoyment can be higher. Other games cant compete with the thrills and memories I've gotten from games like MO. But most people arent interested in giving it a shot.

 

[Speznat]

Most gamers are soft, and or want instant entertainment.

Soft gamers like games like runescape and wow. Low risk, lots of grind.

And instant entertainment think BR games like fortnite, mobas, shooters, etc. Click play get game repeat.

Games like MO are neither. The benefit is the peak enjoyment can be higher. Other games cant compete with the thrills and memories I've gotten from games like MO. But most people arent interested in giving it a shot.

dont get me wrong.

I love escape from tarkov and its a really really hard game. its good.

But the difficulty in Mortal dont feel fair in any way. thats a real problem.